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Money & investing · course 71 of 105

Trading Charts From Candles to Bollinger Bands

Calculate moving averages, MACD, RSI and Bollinger Bands by hand, starting from a single candlestick, so you know what those lines really mean. Maths only, never when to buy or sell.

4 modules

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What it teaches

How to read a candlestick (body, wicks, range, % change) and how five common chart indicators are actually calculated, by hand: simple and exponential moving averages, MACD, RSI with Wilder’s smoothing, and Bollinger Bands with %b. The AI asks 3 questions, places you, shows a short card per module, then gives you one problem at a time and checks your answer against an answer key: every number answer in it was computed by script. It teaches the maths, never when to buy or sell.

How long

36 items. About 30-50 rounds plus a 12-item final: 2-3 sessions (estimate, not timed with a real student). The tutor gives a one-line save code at the end of each session.

The modules

4 modules, drilled one item at a time.

  1. M0

    The words

    Concept questions

  2. M1

    Reading candles

    Body, wicks, range, % change

  3. M2

    Moving averages and MACD

    SMA, EMA, MACD

  4. M3

    RSI and Bollinger Bands

    RSI, Wilder’s smoothing, bands

Before it teaches, it asks

  1. 1
    Why do you want to read charts (you trade already, you’re curious, a course), and which indicators have you seen: moving averages, RSI, MACD, Bollinger Bands?
  2. 2
    A daily candle: open 50, high 57, low 48, close 54. How long are the upper wick and the lower wick?
  3. 3
    Daily closes, day 1 to day 10: 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 14, 13, 12, 16. What is the 3-day SMA on day 10?

What’s exact, and what isn’t

Show

Straight from the course’s own notes.

Computed by script
Every number in the answer key, in exact fractions, rounded to 2 decimals only for display. SMA updates are computed two ways; Wilder’s smoothing is checked against its exponential form; every RSI is checked to lie in 0-100; 18 of the 19 listed wrong answers are reproduced by making the slip (the other is just the opposite choice).
Sourced
Definitions from Wikipedia (Candlestick chart, Moving average, Exponential smoothing, MACD, Relative strength index, Bollinger Bands) and Investor.gov, short quotes matched word for word on 2026-10-10.
Honest limit
Charting platforms differ in small ways (how they seed an EMA or RSI, sample vs population σ); where it matters, the question states the method. No item says whether an indicator is a buy or sell signal, because the course doesn’t claim indicators predict anything.
Not in it yet
Chart patterns, volume indicators, stochastics, ATR, ADX, Fibonacci levels. Strategies and backtesting are left out on purpose: that would be advice.